You want me to teach…. WHAT!?

by unpeudeparis

I’m delinquent yet again in my blog posting. Since last post, I got a placement– Kindergarten at Mullanphy ILC Elementary. Yeah. Kindergarten. The school’s pretty cool; it’s a science magnet school. I’ve got a class of 16 kids, which is the smallest of the 3 Kindergarten classes at my school. That being said, it’s still a super big challenge. I’ve never been one to understand how kids work or anything like that, so interacting with them and understanding what they need/are capable of understanding is difficult.

There are other challenges, too. Like the daily tantrums one of my kids has. And bathroom breaks. Bathroom breaks are the bane of my existance. The boys bathroom is on one side of the school and the girls bathroom is on the other. My kids are still learning how to walk quietly in the hall, so walking to each bathroom takes between 20 and 25 minutes on a good day. My record is 45 minutes. 45 minutes for 16 kids to use the bathroom. Incredible. In addition to that, my classroom management is….. so-so. Again, it comes down to knowing what kids that age can do and understand and putting my expectations for them in words they understand.

Because of all this, plans for this upcoming week (after school) involving lots of research on developmental psychology, etc. Sounds thrilling, I know.

On a lighter note, I was able to go to DC for the holiday weekend to see a lot of my college friends. It was really good to see them all after 4 months and getting out of St. Louis and not thinking about school for a mini-vacation.